9/9/13 Al Qaeda’s strength with Syrian rebels now being downplayed

Source: The Wasington Times

The Obama administration has started to rebrand Syria’s rebels by de-emphasizing the number of al Qaeda fighters among them — a move critics say is based on questionable intelligence designed to downplay the risks associated with a U.S. military strike on the regime of President Bashar Assad.

After two years of the Obama administration arguing that the Syrian rebellion was rife with fighters linked to al Qaeda, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said last week that Islamic extremists are marginal players in Syria’s civil war and are unlikely to profit much from a U.S. bombing campaign.

His new characterization of the opposition has drawn scrutiny — in large part because of the way Mr. Kerry backed it up. Rather than cite official U.S. intelligence assessments, he pointed to an Aug. 30 opinion article penned for The Wall Street Journal by a 26-year-old analyst with ties to a group that lobbies in Washington on behalf of the Syrian rebels.

In hearings before Congress last week, Mr. Kerry said he generally agreed with the assessment, written by Elizabeth O’Bagy, who works at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.